Her Face Will Still Pursue You
by phantomgirl110
Summary: While looking for Christine and Raoul at the Masked Ball, Erik happens upon little Meg, looking very lonely. Entirely Leroux-based, ExM overtones, ExC friendly.


_The Phantom of the Opera_ © Gaston Leroux  
Story © phantomgirl110

This was written for a challenge for the Erik/Meg group on LiveJournal. The challenge was for a Leroux-based fic in which Erik comes across Meg at the Masked Ball while looking for Christine and Raoul, and it had to include a kiss and the following line:_ "He extended a long, pale elegant hand, and felt a prick of excitement when she accepted, placing her tiny, glittered one in his as he lead her down the stairs._"When I pointed out that Leroux!Erik's hands were not exactly elegant, we were given the choice to alter that line, and I have.

I'm not planning on writing a follow-up to this, but perhaps if it's popular I'll consider it. I hope you enjoy, and please review! Thanks!

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**Her Face Will Still Pursue You**  
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Erik stalked determinedly down the hall, confident that his extravagant costume would keep his identity a mystery to anyone who might happen upon this corridor. The cheerful music and cries of partygoers rose and fell ahead of him, at times becomming so loud it sounded as if the entire Masked Ball was surging up into the hall to meet him. He normally shied away from such needless and vulgar events, but he couldn't imagine being elsewhere tonight. Christine would be there tonight, on the arm of her handsome young suitor, the Vicomte de Chagny. The mere thought of the boy angered Erik and he quickened his pace, taking his anger out on the carpet beneath his feet.

He was distracted suddenly by the sound of voices approaching from behind, and he instinctively looked for an adjoining room to duck into. Finding none in that stretch of hallway, he experienced a moment of blind panic before the owners of the voices, a gaggle of teenaged ballerinas, rushed past him without so much as a glance in his direction. He saw among them Cecile Jammes, squawking loudly about something in order to keep all attention on her, and little Meg Giry, straggling along behind due to apparently uncomfortable shoes. He recognized very few of the dancers by name and didn't trouble himself over it. They continued down the hall without ever noticing him, a feat only achievable by a group of adolescent girls, too concerned with clothing and hairstyles and other such frivolities to notice anything around them.

Erik straightened his feathered hat as he entered the grand foyer, striding purposefully to the staircase. No sooner had he set foot on the top step than the atmosphere of the room changed dramatically. Shocked cries took the place of laughter, stunned silence the place of conversation. A few men laughed uneasily as if Erik's entrance were some big joke that they were all in on, and Erik smirked behind his mask at the thought. Directly across the room he saw Jammes and little Giry staring at him, both now wearing masks and grasping each others' hands for comfort; Jammes looked as though she might faint, while Giry stood stock still, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly like a fish.

His eyes scanned the room for only two people. There were several blonde women in the room, and even more young men in fine suits; all were wearing masks and moving about too quickly to recognize. Realizing that this might be more difficult than he'd imagined, he moved quickly into the next room, passing between Jammes and Giry, who separated for him like a set of double doors swinging of their own accord. He found himself surrounded by a great mob of people vying for a closer look at his costume, perhaps hoping to guess the identity of the man beneath it. A wide gap separated him from the guests staring at him in very direction he moved, all of them too frightened by his ghastly appearance to get any closer, but too curious to consider leaving him alone. They read the phrase on his cloak aloud, one after another, as if it might change between recitations. "You, hey you," a man waved drunkenly to get Erik's attention. "Say it! Say it out loud to all of us!" Upon getting no response, he continued: "Say 'Touch me not'..." He trailed off, giving up and lumbering away to find a new amusement.

Several other people continued the futile attempt to get Erik to recite the phrase himself, some of them shouting it stupidly as they imagined he might have. For a few moments he was content to simply stand there, watching the whirl of people around him become wilder and drunker until the whole room seemed to spin, a writhing mess of color and sound. Despite his general disdain for society, he had to acknowledge to himself that being a part of it for one night was somewhat enjoyable. He even felt himself begin to relax in his search for Christine. His eyes had not once stopped scanning the room since he'd entered, but it wasn't even midnight; he had plenty of time to locate her.

The same pack of ballet rats that had passed him in the hall earlier were now in the room, huddled close together and whispering to one another as they watched him. Most of them scanned him up and down, taking in his costume, his hat, his cloak, but little Giry stared straight into his eyes, and he felt strangely uncomfortable under her gaze. He didn't have to search long for a distraction; after only a moment he felt an unfamiliar hand grasp his own. He turned and caught the daring man's wrist in his skeletal fingers, squeezing and twisting as hard as he could. The foolish man cried out in terror and pain, and ran away just as soon as Erik had released him, crashing into people in his hurry to leave the room. This whole thing caused another great stir among the partygoers; half the guests moved farther away from him, and the other half cheered, thrilled that the cause of their earlier excitement was continuing to entertain them.

He was surprised to feel his monstrous face twist into a grin at the reception he was getting, but it slid from his face as quickly as it had appeared as he saw a blonde head moving hurriedly through the crowd, followed closely by a young man. He pushed people out of his way in his haste to reach the couple and was able to follow them down a hall and into another room before finally losing sight of them. He cursed under his breath and headed up a staircase to his right, thinking perhaps they'd gone into the auditorium. When he reached the first landing and didn't see them, he headed up the next flight, and then another after that. He found himself in an empty corridor, and he heard no sound of footsteps in either direction. Nevertheless, he was determined to find them, and headed left down the hall, stopping to listen at doors and finding most of them to be locked.

He went down the next staircase he came upon and almost stopped midway down when he saw a door in the hall ahead of him standing partially open. A pair of white hands grasped the doorknob, frantically trying to pull it closed while a second pair of hands resisted, attempting to open it further. Erik heard Christine gasp as the door fell a bit further open and the upper half of the Vicomte came into view; he glared at Erik with a mixture of hatred and shock. Finally, as Erik reached the landing, the door slammed closed, and he heard the click of the lock. He strode over and pressed his ear to the door, and heard Christine say, "In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass!"

White-hot anger surged through Erik's veins, followed by excruciating anguish. The world spun before his eyes and he staggered as though he'd been smashed in the head with a bat. He clutched at his chest and continued down the hallway, unable to hear any more. "In the name of our love," she'd said. Their love, the Vicomte's and Christine's. Not Erik's. Christine had just professed her love to a man who was not Erik. His mind seemed to have gone numb by the time he found himself back at the party. His entrance didn't seem so grand this time, though whether it was because he staggered in through a side door or because people had grown too giddy and drunk to notice, he wasn't sure. Even the ballet rats were up and dancing with young patrons, as opposed to moving about in their usual herd.

He moved through the crowds in a sort of trance, feeling more like a ghost than he ever had; common sense told him that people must be watching him, but he felt himself to be only half present. The wide-eyed stares seemed to go right through him, his heart too numb for any emotion to arise within it. Everything was a loud, colorful blur; he wasn't aware of what he was seeing or hearing, or even of where he was going.

He found himself climbing the grand staircase and at the top he saw little Giry sitting alone on a bench against the wall. She had taken off her shoes and was attempting to hide this fact under her dress. He wondered vaguely why she wasn't down dancing with her friends, and felt himself watching her in a sort of stupor. So clouded was his mind that he felt as though he might have been looking at her through the trick mirror in Christine's dressing room, and that she couldn't see him unless he wanted her to. Meg could see him, however, and she did. Her dark eyes went round as saucers when she looked up and saw Red Death standing before her on the landing, and he would have been amused by the look on her face if he weren't so certain that he'd just died and there was nothing remotely funny about this night. She didn't move, but he could swear that every muscle in her body had gone rigid. He thought of a frightened rabbit, considering which way it should run to escape being slaughtered.

"You're alone," he said without thinking, without emotion. She glanced around, realizing the statement was true, and her breathing picked up speed. She was panicked to be alone with Red Death, unsure what he might do. He hadn't intended to alarm her, he wasn't going to touch her; he wasn't sure what he'd meant. He hadn't really meant anything. This was what he told her, and she nodded, but didn't loosen her grip on the seat of the bench. He took a step toward her and her sinewy body jerked as if to get up and run away, but she didn't actually go anywhere. Now she was close to tears. He stepped back and leaned awkwardly into the railing behind him, saying "I'll just stay here, shall I?" and wondering when he'd gotten into the habit of joking with ballet rats.

They continued to stare at each other, horrified black eyes looking into lifeless yellow ones, until he finally asked, because there was nothing else to do,"Why aren't you down there dancing with your friends?"

She watched him in silence for another moment before finally choking out words: "My feet hurt." She fooled with her dress as if considering lifting the hem to show him her bare feet, then seemed to think better of it. She left her hands in her lap, twisting nervous fingers.

"You, a dancer? Your feet hurt? Aren't you used to it?"

She blushed and glanced down uneasily. "I don't dance ballet in shoes with heels. And these shoes"--she produced one from under the bench--"are three years old and too small now." The blush crept all the way up to her hairline.

"Oh."

It struck him, very distantly, how odd this situation was. Just moments ago he'd felt his heart shatter within his chest, and now he was standing here discussing a ballerina's feet. This didn't make sense, but what did anymore? His darling Christine was two floors up, in a private box with the Vicomte de Chagny. Every plan Erik had made, everything he'd counted on, was destroyed the moment Christine had professed her love to another. He'd been so close to earning her love. She was going to love him for himself and become his living wife, and then the boy had shown up and ruined everything. Erik's purpose in the world was lost, and so Erik was lost. It didn't make sense for him to be here now, having a conversation about shoes with Madame Giry's daughter, but he considered abstractly that when nothing in the world made sense, everything could. It didn't matter anymore that it was strange, because his very existance was strange now.

Meg was bent over in her seat, pulling her shoes back on as quickly as possible without leaving her position on the bench. Erik suddenly felt sorry for her, sitting up here by herself while her friends celebrated downstairs. Without really thinking, without really feeling, he heard himself speak: "Would you like to dance?"

She raised her head so quickly he feared she might snap her skinny neck. Her eyes were round again, but now they had a questioning look, as if she wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. "Pardon?"

"Would you like to dance?" She still stared at him. Judging by her reaction, he wondered if she'd ever been asked to dance before, off the stage. "I know your feet hurt, but it seems a pity not to dance at the Masked Ball." Even as he spoke the words he couldn't believe they were coming from his mouth, but still he didn't stop.

Up until now her mouth had been hanging just slightly open, but now she closed it and looked at him thoughtfully, weighing his words and the tone of his voice. When she spoke, it was deliberate and measured. "I think I can manage one dance."

He extended a long, pale hand, and felt a prick of excitement when she accepted, placing her tiny, glittered one in his as he lead her down the stairs. He looked her up and down as they walked. She wore a simple, pale pink gown, and her black hair was tied back with a bow made of material too dark to match the dress properly. Her mask was equally mismatched, a white satin thing with red roses on it. He guessed that, when put in proportion, the mask was the most expensive thing she was wearing.

She had a nervous smile on her face, and it grew as they descended the staircase. He saw the scene through her eyes: a tiny ballet rat in mismatched attire entering the Masked Ball on the arm of Red Death. It would certainly make her very popular among the dancers, and it was already causing quite a stir in the room. Couples stopped dancing and turned to point and whisper to one another. "Who is that girl?" he imagined them saying, and he was glad that he was able to give Meg this small excitement. She was young and foolish and would eventually learn the world's cruel ways, but not on this night.

When they reached the floor he immediately swept her into a waltz. People moved out of the way as they danced by, watching and wondering who this strangely matched duo was. Meg's face below the mask was so red she almost glowed, but she didn't look unhappy. On the contrary, she looked as though this might be the most exciting moment of her life. He glanced around and noticed Jammes and some of the other ballerinas watching, so he swung Meg around with an overdramatic flourish just as they danced past the twittering spectators. Meg hadn't expected it, and laughed gleefully at being spun about in the centre of the room as her friends' expressions wavered somewhere between jealous and dumbfounded.

When she came back in toward him, he pulled her a bit closer than he'd intended to and they both jumped and gasped at the near contact of their bodies. He cleared his throat and tried to act like nothing had passed between them. And, he supposed, nothing really had passed between them. Had it?

She leaned in close to him, and he could smell her hair and the powder on her neck. She spoke quietly, her voice low. "You're him, aren't you?"

"What?"

"The Ghost. You're him, aren't you?"

Erik almost stopped dancing right there in the middle of the dance floor, so shocked was he to hear this question. Luckily his legs seemed to know what they were doing without needing his brain to dictate; he continued to spin Meg around the room, his thoughts swirling blindly for the second time that evening. "I..." She looked up at him expectantly. "What makes you think that?" He attempted to laugh, but it came out sounding more like sandpaper against wood.

"Well...look at you. Who else would come to the Masked Ball dressed as Red Death?"

He actually did laugh. "No one, I suppose."

"Are you saying yes? Yes, you are the Ghost?" She looked at him expectantly again, but it was different than before. She wasn't waiting for an answer, she was waiting for a confession.

He stalled for time, spinning her out away from him again. "Would it bother you much to know you're dancing with a ghost?" he asked as once again they found themselves mere inches apart.

She looked him right in the eyes again. "No."

But he never heard her answer, for just over her shoulder he caught a glimpse of a familiar shock of blonde hair moving hurriedly through the crowd toward the staircase. Without a second thought he dropped Meg's hands unceremoniously and nearly pushed her out of his way, desperate to keep Christine in his line of sight. The Vicomte was not with her, she was completely alone. Erik's life was not over as he'd thought; here was hope! There was no time to waste, Erik knew, he must get to Christine as soon as possible, before the boy could fill her mind with any more of his pretty thoughts and empty promises for a perfect life.

"Where are you going?"

Meg's shaking voice issued from behind him and sounded so sad that he turned back to face her. He couldn't remember why he was here, dancing with little Giry, when all his focus should have been on Christine. The spell was broken; there was sense in the world again, and order, and this scenario made no sense at all. He glanced over his shoulder to the hall Christine had just dashed down, frantic that he might lose her again. Keenly aware that the entire roomfull of people was watching this exchange, he leaned close to Meg and quickly murmured, "I'm afraid I must leave you, mademoiselle." He lifted her small hand up under his mask and kissed it lightly, too distracted by thoughts of Christine to worry what his lips might feel like against Meg's pale skin. Glancing up to meet her eyes for the last time, he was shocked to see them filling with tears of hurt and confusion. He pitied her and felt responsible for her sadness, but only distantly. Christine was alone, and he needed to get to her; everything else was secondary. He broke the hold Meg had on his hand and on his mind and rushed up the stairs after Christine.

Realizing within moments that she'd gone back to her dressing room, he took one of his hidden passages down to the house on the lake; perhaps Christine was alone because she remained loyal to Erik in spite of all the boy's sweet nothings? If this was the case, Erik had to prepare for that night's lesson, which he was quite sure would be the most important lesson they'd had yet. Christine would learn vocal technique, but she would also learn to love Erik for himself.

Clenching and unclenching his skeletal hands absentmindedly as he half-ran down the corridor, he became aware of something sticking to one of his fingers and slowed to squint down at it. A bit of glitter from Meg's hands had attached itself to him and refused to let go. Upon further examination he discovered it was all over his hands and arms, along with some of the white powder she'd put on her skin. He brushed and scratched at it, cursing when it did not come off. "Do you see," he shouted passionately into the empty darkness as he resumed walking, "what happens when you lose sight of what's important? When you forget about your angel and become distracted by a silly little chorus girl? You end up having to coax the little rat out of your very skin while Christine waits above, alone!"

As soon as he reached the house on the lake he went to the basin, plunging his hands into the water to continue scrubbing off all evidence of Meg. How would he explain all this glitter to Christine, if she asked? He cursed again, loudly, suddenly. What had he been thinking? Why on earth had he danced with Giry? What point had it served, other than to make him look foolish and distract him from Christine? He thought of Meg alone on her little bench by the wall, Meg's hand in his on the dance floor, Meg's eyes full of tears as he left her. He stopped scrubbing as he thought of Meg's happiness and laughter, and then her loneliness and her sadness. _She doesn't know what it's like to be alone_, he thought bitterly, finally finishing with the glitter and going into his private chambers to put on his best suit.

As he pulled his costume up over his head, he couldn't help but notice that it smelled of Meg's powder. "Enough!" he shouted at no one. It wasn't Meg's scent that he wanted clinging to his clothes, it was Christine's! There was no reason at all for him to ever consider Meg again. Who on earth cared about little Meg Giry?

He remained angry for letting himself fall into such a spell at the Ball, and tempered his annoyance only be assuring himself that it would never happen again. "Tonight I will bring Christine here," he announced to the empty room. "Tonight is the night I have planned for so long. Christine will know me, the real me, and she will love me for myself because she loves my voice. Her boy suitor will be but a memory."

He repeated such sentiments as he prepared for her imminent arrival. He said them to himself even as he approached the passageway behind Christine's mirror. He sang to her, and heard her say, "Here I am, Erik. I am ready. But you are late." He saw a smile appear on her beautiful lips.

But still he couldn't shake the image of a little ballerina, alone and crying in the middle of a dance floor.

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**The End.  
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I read once that Scotch Tape comes in handy if you ever have glitter stuck to you. Just FYI.


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